


Art and Craft

by audiaphilios



Series: From Tumblr With Lo-- [39]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drag Queens, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 04:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9583163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audiaphilios/pseuds/audiaphilios
Summary: It was easier to keep it all a secret, then, when he went out into the world. Easier to move through the crowds by day if he knew how to turn heads on his own terms at night.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous prompted:  
> drag queen au
> 
> [Originally posted to tumblr October 16, 2016.](http://audiaphilios.tumblr.com/post/151861692760/drag-queen-au)

There were things about his life that his parents would never truly appreciate, Bitty knew. They could recognize and applaud talent, skill, and dedication, and they loved that he was an entertainer—his mama had always bragged that Bitty didn’t learn to walk until after he learned to dance, didn’t learn to talk until he could sing. But it was the craft of it all they didn’t quite get, the sewing and the make-up and the development of an entire persona, as well as the singing and dancing. It was the transformation that Bitty loved, and the fact that he could do all of this with his own two hands. He didn’t need other people, though he loved his sisters of the stage.

Jack, on the other hand, had never been a team player. Too many hushed late-night conversations between his parents, his father worried about the bad influence his mother’s friends would have on him, had pushed him away from the macho life his father had espoused. He’d always been dazzled by the photography, the costuming, the way his mother transformed herself for the runway or the screen. She was an icon to so many, and yeah, maybe his mother’s friends had an influence on him, but it was never the stifling, expectant culture of his dad’s friends. His mother’s friends were the only ones who helped him feel beautiful through a very painful puberty, teaching him contouring and color and camouflage. He almost wept when his shoulders broadened, and his body filled out, but that was when they taught him how to sew. They helped him so much, but he cherished knowing how to do for himself. It was easier to keep it all a secret, then, when he went out into the world. Easier to move through the crowds by day if he knew how to turn heads on his own terms at night.

Jack’s been a regular at Lars’ club for years, when Bitty arrives on amateur night. “It was just luck,” Jack tells him after, disregarding his indisputable skill and talent and craft, focusing on the fact that such things must come easy to someone with Bitty’s stature, with Bitty’s naturally delicate features, a body that could fit into shoes from any store and dresses off any rack. It was luck that he was born the way he was, and Jack has had to work so hard.

Bitty thinks it’s bullshit, that Jack can just stroll around with a mother who’s a Queen in her own right, Jack who got lessons at the knees of the famous, Jack who has the money and family backing to do whatever he wants with his life. Jack who treats his own talent as some kinda light that deserves to be under a bushel, who can wipe off his (gorgeously-done) make-up and just Be A Real Boy, the kind that Coach was never gonna get from Bitty.

They both think the other must have it so easy.

They both have one another all wrong.

(Don’t worry, they’ll learn.)


End file.
